BREW port?

Discussion about other and unofficial ports of ScummVM

Moderator: ScummVM Team

Post Reply
schan
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:51 am

BREW port?

Post by schan »

Hello,
First of all sorry for my english.
I am very interested in a port of scummvm for mobile phones, but I know that porting to java is not possible withouth a great rewrite.
So I wonder if a BREW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_Run ... r_Wireless) port is possible or someone is working on it.
If it is possible and no one is working on it, I will try to make it by myself, but I will appreciate any comments, about feasibility or any information.
Thanks in advance![/url]
User avatar
md5
ScummVM Developer
Posts: 2250
Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2005 9:31 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Post by md5 »

BREW developers are required to register with Qualcomm, and to submit their applications for TRUE BREW Testing at significant additional cost. Before submitting for testing, the application needs to be signed. As of March 2006, the least expensive digital signature for testing costs 400 USD and is limited to 100 application submissions [1]. This steep cost of entry excludes hobbyists from developing for phones that use BREW.

After all these hurdles have been cleared, there is still a high risk that carriers will reject the application as insufficiently profitable, or as a competitor to one of their own applications.
Reading the above, I'd say it's highly unlikely, unfortunately :(
User avatar
Freddo
Posts: 287
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 4:41 pm

Post by Freddo »

I belive BREW can handle C/C++ so a port should be possible. Don't know of any BREW port in existance, so if you want one you probably have to do it yourself.

But I think it would be easier to just buy a decent S60 phone.
schan
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:51 am

Post by schan »

I see... a big inconvenience! :(
schan
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:51 am

Post by schan »

Despite the high cost,
do you -developers- think that the port would be difficult? I have seen many ports to very different devices (S60 or NDS), but actually I have never looked into scummvm's code and I don't know about its modularity or ease to port.
Maybe it worths playing with the SDK. And about the money... well, but I know people --real fans-- who would pay for it! ;)
fingolfin
Retired
Posts: 1452
Joined: Wed Sep 21, 2005 4:12 pm

Post by fingolfin »

ScummVM is in general highly portable. It's fairly modular, too.

But it is in general impossible *for us* to judge how difficult/easy a given port would be. For this, one really needs an expert of the target platform, or at least some very good knowledge of the target platform: What are the RAM/CPU specifications, how does on access graphics, how are files handled, etc.

Personally, I am not very happy about the idea of paying lots of money to support a totally non-open platform. Also, the way this whole setup works already imposes lots of hurdles to the would-be developer.

As I understand it, we could not even *distribute* binaries made for BREW, unless a Carrier explicitly chooses to do so. To quote the wikipedia article:

"After the application passes all tests, it may be offered to a mobile operator (content provider) to be accessible for download to general handsets. The application is then signed by the content provider, to allow its execution on any supported BREW handset."

If this is correct, then the whole thing would not even be GPL compatible, because not everybody would be able to make & use modified versions. So that would rule it out from a legal point of view.

To sum it up: If they don't *want* us, why should we bother? There are many alternatives out there which are apparently much friendlier towards open source developers.
schan
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:51 am

Post by schan »

Thanks, fingolfin, very good answer, you have convinced me.
Post Reply